Due to recent family stress, my immediate family has decided to pull back on celebrating the holidays with extended family. Instead we will be attending a convention about cartoons and comic book characters on Easter

DD is very excited about her costume and being able to run around in public in it. We will likely do a very small egg hunt in the yard and give her a basket of goodies to celebrate Spring.

I just don't enjoy the drama of family events anymore and need to scale back, doing something completely different is so much more relaxing.

Don't do Passover, don't do April Fool's Day. That leaves Easter. We may or may not go to church. We're definitely going to brunch with DH's family. After that...I don't know. No one else has made any specific invitations, so we may just spend the rest of the day at home. That would be nice.

The big issue surrounding Easter is regarding DH's family reunion in July. We can only go for half the week, and we're trying to decide if we should RSVP to that effect before Easter, so everyone knows and can plan for it, or wait until after Easter so we don't spend the entire brunch listening to people ask us why we don't like spending time with them (the family reunion is a full week long - I don't want to spend that much time with any large group of people!).

Easter is a big deal for me. Holy Thursday, watch Passion of the Christ. Good Friday service. Saturday is prep/relax day, and this year it involves workday at my grandmother's house. Saturday night, make the jelly donut holes. Sunday service (one of my two favorite services of the year), then to Aunt and Uncle's house for the egg hunt and family time.

One thing I want to do for my boys is to have a small seder with just our little family. We're not Jewish, so I'm going to do some research, but I think this too is an important part of church history that they should know about. So just something on a small scale.

it's just me and DS, and we do a small and quick seder - the tradtional foods, the charoset, the horseradish, matza, chicken soup, the questons and the songs. hopefully, we will also have the entire week (or at least part of it) off from work. the rest of the week we eat a lot of matza, and matza brei, and matza meal rolls, and did i mention matza?

We don't really 'do' April Fools or Passover. But my birthday is often near enough (like this year). The thing I am most looking forward to this year is my 20 month old is old enough to Easter Egg hunt. (squeel)

Easter is a big deal for me. Holy Thursday, watch Passion of the Christ. Good Friday service. Saturday is prep/relax day, and this year it involves workday at my grandmother's house. Saturday night, make the jelly donut holes. Sunday service (one of my two favorite services of the year), then to Aunt and Uncle's house for the egg hunt and family time.

One thing I want to do for my boys is to have a small seder with just our little family. We're not Jewish, so I'm going to do some research, but I think this too is an important part of church history that they should know about. So just something on a small scale.

I think this is wonderful! We are not Jewish either, but one year my son and I attended a Seder at a friends house. He has never forgotten it, 7 years later.

Asks the life-long atheist who LOVES Easter dinner of leg of lamb, etc...

They're a Utah casserole thing. Everyone has their own variation. Mine involves par-boiling 9 whole, skin-on, russet potatoes until almost fork tender, cooling them in ice water until they can be comfortably held (10min?) and then grating them on ye olde box grater. Then, grate about 2.5 or 3 cups cheddar and set aside. Heat 2 small cans condensed cream of mushroom soup (don't add milk or water) until it's almost boiling and slowly stir in all but about half a cup of the cheese until everything is fully blended. Remove from heat, stir in about 6oz. sour cream. Mix w/grated potatoes. Shovel into glass casserole, top with remaining cheese. Bake at about 350 for 20-35 minutes or until bubbly. Nom.

Some people mix in onions or add cornflakes on top.

This year DH's birthday is on Easter Sunday. His boys will be in town, so we plan to spend the day with my DS and them. This means that I'm cooking my first Easter meal ever. (Thank you, VorpalBunny, for posting the potato recipe!)

We'll go to church Easter morning. We'll dye eggs. DS will get an Easter basket. There might be an egg hunt. And considering this is next weekend, I need to get busy!

I'm having several friends over on the afternoon of Easter to dye eggs, eat chocolate and do terrible things with microwaves and flames to marshmallow Peeps. I'm also going to make hot cross buns, which I make every year. For April Fool's, I'll probably make some paper fish and put them in unexpected places in the apartment and leave it at that. I'm not big on pranks.

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How I miss Passover with my family! I have somehow received much of the seder supplies for the family, but I've married an atheist and haven't found a community with to share the meal since I moved to Ohio. However, my grandfather will turn 90 on the 15th, which will gather the family a week after the holidays. This is where my personal etiquette issues will be at hand.

I have given the cut indirect to my eldest cousin Matt. He knows it, and most of the family knows why. That isn't important, but my main issue is how to handle this in the presence of my dear grandfather, who is the only reason the cut remains indirect. I'm usually very good at staying in different parts of the house from Matt and keeping my conversation cool when forced to interact (instead of lashing out at him like I've wanted to for the last 25 years). The biggest trick will be keeping sober while keeping cool. At my youngest cousin's wedding, when he and I were stuck at the same table for the reception, I swallowed two bourbons in rapid succession (not proud of this).

Well, this weekend, I'll be...working. But only for a couple of hours on Friday and Sunday!

(After all, I'm a church organist--it's part of my job description! )

I managed to get out of an engagement with my brother and family by already being booked for one with my in-laws. I'm not certain, but I think that I've just managed to be a poster child for "out of the frying pan into the fire". (I love my MIL and FIL, but my BIL's children are quite... challenging, and the elder is already a case-hardened SS. Then again, my brother is also SS, along with his family--I suppose that makes them a blizzard!--and he's had forty more years of experience at it, so I hope that I made the right decision!)